Historical Recollections

Abstract

Charles de l’Ecluse (Fig. 1.1), latinized Carolus Clusius, son of a noble family, was the greatest botanist of his time (Hunger 1927; Veendorp and Baas Becking 1938; Mägdefrau 1992). He was born in Arras in 1526. He studied law at Lovain and Marburg and later medicine at Wittenberg, Montpellier and Paris and also lived in various other European cities including Frankfurt, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Antwerp and London. He travelled in Spain and Portugal, in the European Alps and in Hungary. In Vienna he founded a medical garden — Hortus medicus — in 1573. In 1592, at the age of 66, he was appointed director of the Hortus medicus in Leyden (Veendorp and Baas Becking 1938), one of the six oldest gardens in Europe founded in 1587, where he died in 1609. Due to his extensive travels in Europe he was intimately familiar with the European flora. He discovered many new species, which he described and depicted thoroughly. He introduced tulips to the Netherlands and was involved in the introduction of potato to European gardens providing its first detailed description in 1601 although at the time the great nutritional value of potato for large populations was not yet appreciated.